We end the year as disasters, both human-made and natural, continue to envelop our fragile planet. This year alone, 300000 civilians were killed in the over 10 conflicts raging across our planet. Humans, supposedly the most intelligent creatures of a super-rich biosphere, have collectively painted themselves into a corner, facing a problematic future of existential dimensions.
About 25000 people die of hunger or hunger-related causes everyday. This is one person every three and a half seconds. It is children who die most often.
The Finnish philosopher George von Wright said that man places competition before morality, materialism before community, economy before ecology, which will lead to man’s own annihilation. We are in the midst of the worst economic and financial crisis since the Great Depression. In our attempts at stabilising the world, humankind has tried religion, atheism, communism, capitalism, democracy, republics, dictatorships, monarchies, oligarchies, theocracies, fascism and education, but all we have to show for this effort is what we have today: Genocide, ethnic cleansing, terrorism, war, threat of war, insane distribution of wealth, abject poverty, malnutrition, starvation, executions, abortions, nuclear proliferation, pollution, alienation, social stratification, greed, arrogance, oppression and countless more examples of social cancers that have placed all life on this planet on the brink of extinction.
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Poverty is the absence of all human rights. The frustrations and anger generated by abject poverty cannot sustain peace in any society. To build peace we must find ways to provide opportunities for people to live decent lives.
More than 1 billion people are still condemned to abject poverty. Whatever cloud of uncertainty may hang over the future, we must not fail to lay the foundation of a more stable and equitable world order which fosters greater hope and wider opportunities for humankind.
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